318 CAUSES OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



dead were supposed to leave their graves and join 

 the living in a feast around the family hearth, is 

 still celebrated in the keeping of Christmas and in 

 the various customary practices on the first two 

 days of November. 



The May-Day festivals pagan festivals held in 

 honour of vegetable and human fecundity are 

 still held in their early form round about 

 Locmariaquer and in the village of Campine. 

 Traces also remain in the picking and wearing 

 of flowers on the 1st of May, and the same day 

 is selected by the socialists for the celebration of 

 their near approach to a life under freer and 

 happier conditions. 



This survival of festivals, customs and traditions, 

 while the religions and civilizations which produced 

 them have passed away, is the principal link which 

 connects us with bygone generations. 



" Their value lies," says Houzeau in his Etude de 

 la Nature, " in the establishment of a chain between 

 successive generations. The memory of an indivi- 

 dual may be regarded as constituting his personality. 

 Take from him the memory of his past, and he is left 

 at a point in time wherein there is no stability and 

 complete isolation. To be himself, a man requires 

 not only his recollections, but a knowledge of his past 

 habits and traditions. When a savage is removed 

 from his fellows and transported to new surround- 

 ings in a distant country, he loses all knowledge of 

 his former condition. Society itself, made up as it 



